Outside Counsel

 

Will he see his shadow?  What will it portend?  Is our period of untenable and interminable dreariness, darkness, and dearth finally behind us?

 

What’s that you say?  Groundhog Day was last month?  

 

Oh, see, I’m not talking about that one.  

 

For those of us in the dog world, I am talking about the day, typically the second Tuesday in March, when the groundhog climbs up and peers over the wall of the Northern State Prison, casts a hopeful glance toward the Doubletree Hilton, and waits to see if the AKC delegate body finally gets their act together.  

 

Or are we destined to endure the election of another class of recycled Board members, essentially relegating us to more of the same? 

 

In fairness, he may well not show his head this year.  Word on the street is that he banged it against the wall so many times after the delegates voted against their own interests last year by failing to vote in favor of term limits that he did permanent damage. 

 

Who can blame him?  It was a completely boneheaded move, by people who pushed, and those who bought into, the same objections that are always raised:  we will lose our “institutional knowledge” on the Board.  Or we can determine who we want to serve us through elections, and if we are dissatisfied with a sitting director, we can vote them out.  

 

How’s that worked out?  

 

I’ll tell you:  last March, the then and current Chairman of the Board stood for re-election to the Board of Directors.  So incredibly unpopular, indeed despised, he could not regain a seat on the Board until five hours and six ballots had passed, with only 249 of the original 343 delegates still voting, and he received the requisite number of votes to be re-elected.  And he was only opposed at that point by one other candidate.  And yet, despite demonstrating such huge unpopularity within the delegate body, and only having won because of the attrition of candidates and delegates, the BOD inexplicably thought it prudent to select him again to be their chair.   

 

You wanna tell me that story again, the one where, if you are dissatisfied with a sitting director you can vote them out?  Folks, not only can you not vote them out, you get stuck with him as the head of the whole she-bang all over again.  

 

This is clearly a crowd who refuses to take “no” for an answer.  Term limits is the only thing that will save us.  Revenues, registrations, entries, public interest and enthusiasm for purebred dogs, all down.  Titles, events, fees, the breeding and selling of doodles and designer dogs, all up.  But alas, there is no term limit proposal on the ballot for the foreseeable future (but wait a little while, it will surely be back).  Instead, the only way to break this interminable, indeed sick, cycle, is to pretend like there are term limits.  

 

Anybody running who has had their turn at governance of the organization has played a role in the freefall in which AKC finds itself, and should be disqualified from serving again.  If they had any good ideas, novel approaches, interest in taking the organization in a new direction, they had their chances.  If they have run a bajillion times and lose every time, hello, why do they continue to insult your judgment and waste your time?  If they sat out for a year or two and now have lined up all of the favors they need to flex their own ambitions, how does that benefit anyone else or the organization?  

 

In short, we don’t need them, and don’t want them.  

 

That still leaves the delegates with several good candidates from which to choose.  

 

If you are reluctant to vote for “newcomers” because you don’t know much about them, they haven’t done it before, and they haven’t “paid their dues,” let me ask, how’s voting for the same old, same old been working out for you, your club, the sport, and the organization?  

 

Or you could just give the groundhog the day off and tell him you plan to vote for more winter.